Wireless communications networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and the like. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources.
A wireless communication network may include a number of network devices such as access points (APs) that can support communication for a number of wireless devices. A wireless device may communicate with a network device bi-directionally. For example, in a wireless local area network (WLAN), a wireless device (e.g., a station or STA) may communicate with an AP via downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the AP to the STA, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the STA to the AP.
In WLANs or Wi-Fi networks, new devices (e.g., IEEE 802.11-ac compliant devices) are being deployed that provide increased end-to-end throughput. Because of transmit power regulations and/or radio propagation characteristics, for example, these new devices may not be able to provide sufficient coverage (i.e., range) in some situations. One approach to address this issue is to use wireless relays (e.g., relay APs) to increase coverage by extending the role of a legacy or gateway AP to the wireless relays. Extending the role of the gateway AP, however, puts a great burden on the wireless relays, which in some cases may have power and/or processing limitations. Thus, new mechanisms may be needed to extend the coverage provided by these new devices without placing too much of a burden on the wireless relays used to extend the coverage.